Andrea's Survival Guide

I belong

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:05:00 +0000

I thought I should post this poem here as well, for it might trigger a few thoughts.

I BELONG

It kills me when I can't speak,
It kills me when I have to be
Silent about what I see.

It kills me when I have to lie,
When I have to put on a smile
That I don't feel inside.

Just an empty façade.

When I see it's black
And they say it's white.

When I see it’s not right
And they say it’s all fine.

It kills me when I must show
That everything is right.

Insidious, poisonous,
Slowly creeping, surely killing
Cancer of the soul.

"I can't tell it to anyone,
So I tell it to everyone" -
Our friend has said it.

So I chose to LIVE.

Live a life that only belongs to me
Yet it is of all Man.

Live a life where I decide
What is true for me.

Where I am the one
Who says what I see.

Where birds have wings to fly,
Mothers to hear babies cry,
Where the children are not shy.

Live a life where poets write,
Dancers jump and turn,
Painters set the color.

I belong to Life.

I belong to where laughter roars
And where lovers kiss,

And where empty promises
Are not part of the script.

Where sanity rules.
Where the Spirit calls.

I belong to no party, no club,
No church or religion,
Organization, association.

I belong to my own kind,
My only child,
My peace of mind.

I belong to my own voice.

I belong to the ever-hungry
For beauty and melody.

And probably, hopefully,
I belong to another heart.

I belong to those
Who make food with a brush,
A pen, a bow, a string, a lens.

I belong to the free-thinkers,
Free-sayers and free-doers.

And when I'll have to look back
At all my years,
With eyes already closed,
The question will be asked:

Was it good, the way I belonged?

- Budapest, 15 January 2011

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A peaceful country?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 14:15:00 +0000

To survive, one also has to know what are the contra-survival things. A main one is war.

I was told to be lucky to be able to live in one of the world's most peaceful and decent countries, and that's what one can read at various lists and articles where they compare countries. Alright, let's see.

Sweden hasn't been in war for a few hundreds years, that must prove it!

Well, it's not a secret that in WWII for example, Sweden sold arms to both sides and made shit loadz of money on it - hence a nice economic boom.

Also a known fact that Swedish soldiers serve in Afghanistan - doesn't that make Sweden take part in a war?

And what about the training fields for NATO (in a neutral country, which is beating her chest so much about being a model country for neutrality - correct me, if I am wrong)?

More and more details of manufacturing and selling weapons by Swedish companies and authorities are coming to light. Like this one: Sweden's Saab sold arm to Saudi Arabia

Yes we know, war is the best business for those who provide the material means. (But then... khm... what was this all Saab bankruptcy circus about? Where did the big money go?)

And we also know that war is killing of other human beings. So my one billion Kronor question is: WHO is happy and proud about the money they make by killing people? WHO are those few guys? They should be named and publicly hanged, or something of the sort.

In the history of Mankind, there have been a couple of great man from whom we all can learn. One of them said about war:

"War is fear cloaked in courage." - Gen William C.
Well, no comment to this one... Or: what is Sweden afraid of? One of the best countries of the world shouldn't have any reason to.

“There was never a good war or a bad peace.” - Benjamin Franklin
So which one of all the wars Sweden was/is supporting was/is good?

“Peace will not come out of a clash of arms but out of justice lived and done by unarmed nations in the face of odds.” - Mahatma Gandhi
How is Sweden providing true justice, based on REASON?

“If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.” - The 14th Dalai Lama How Sweden's selling weapons to both sides of conflicts provides peace for another?

“Ideas and not battles mark the forward progress of mankind. Individuals, and not masses, form the culture of the race.” - L. Ron Hubbard

What are Sweden's ideas about how to live in peace, without battles?

How is the individual supported in a society where outstanding achievement, sticking out of the crowd, daring to be different from everyone else in not cool but frowned upon, where talents are suppressed, because of a misinterpretation of "everyone should be treated equal"?

“If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.” - Mahatma Gandhi

How do Swedes educate their children for peace? By dressing already the little babies in black clothes with hate symbols like skulls and cross bones?

“Peace is costly but it is worth the expense” - African proverb

How is money spent on peace, where can one see the rocketing statistics of that?

“It is more difficult to organize a peace than to win a war; but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not organized.” - Aristotle

How is Sweden organizing for peace?

And lastly:

How is Sweden a law abiding country, if, through decades, the governments and parliaments (which are elected by and are the representatives of the citizens, so whatever happens in this country, it is ALSO the responsibility of the individual citizens and NOT only of the Nanny, I just put this here in parentheses, for Swedes seem to forget this) - if they are violate their own weapon export law, for one?

How on Earth can Sweden be called one of the most peaceful nations of the world, when they are one of the biggest arm exporters as well?

A few questions, before the election day...

(ps: this I wrote particularly about Sweden and her open or underhanded warfare dealings, but as for war, it would concern a couple of other nations, too, one can think of too many.)

And to ease up a bit after this heavy topic, a little music for you, with a Hugnarian song arranged by an Israeli composer and put to photos of the beautiful Swedish waters of Baltic sea...

About Andrea's Survival Guide
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How not to choose the right partner? Mistake #5

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:25:00 +0000

It's very well time to finish my little series about how to avoid failures in choosing your partner... I was quite busy in the last few months with different things, and it seems like I have written up most of the things I had to say about this matter - at least, I don't really have attention on them any more, instead, I am looking into the future :-)

But just for the record and to make it complete, here is one last thing that might be useful for some of you - in fact, I wish so much I'd had known this better!

(Quick recap of the previous articles:
Mistake #4 (when you don't look, only listen)
Mistake #3 (non-supportive partner)
Mistake #2 (too different purposes, lifestyles)
Mistake #1 (different communication levels)

This last one below may seem obvious to some people, or may seem totally and revolutionary new to others, even completely unreal to some:

superiority/inferiority

It is simply when one of the partners feels superior (greater, more powerful, more important etc) or inferior (lesser, weaker, less important etc), compared to the other. Although the "symptomes" vary, the end result will be the same: with such a partner, one will feel worse and worse, less able, less competent and healthy, happy, valuable, active, creative, you name it.

This has endless manifestations and ramifications throughout the various civilizations of Earth: from openly and often crucially suppressing women in certain countries, to the bigotry of misinterpreted gender equality in other places (shall I mention Sweden? don't get me started on it, maybe another time...)

And this is what is called today as "energy vampires" or "psychic vampires", and it is vital to know the basics about the subject of how people become suppressed and by whom, the real nature of suppression, and how to handle that. Otherwise one can't do anything effective about it, no matter if you try to use the most fashionable, ezoteric psycho-bla-bla, full with the most scientific-sounding words. It's more simple than that.

Simple examples, taken from real life:

It's very easy to recognize if your partner shows his or her superior attitude to you in a direct manner: being bossy, ordering you around, always criticizing what you do, etc. There are thousands of stories and jokes around this sad topic, and I am sure everyone can think of a couple who are like that.

Solution? If you are not masochist and don't want to live with a despot, quit and find a partner. (Note: there might be times when your partner who was not critical to you at the first place but a real sweetheart, becomes so after a while - that has a certain reason which can be remedied and love can reign again.)

But what if your partner doesn't show it directly that he or she thinks less of you than of his or herself? Snide, sneaky, covertly hostile comments "Darling, why do you put on red skirt in your age?", "In this jacket, everyone will see that you came from another country", "jokes" about you in front of your friends and so on "Oh, that's only my Hubby, he doesn't count", might seem funny and well-intentioned - but the result is that you will feel somehow uncomfortable and degraded, and maybe you don't even recognize why.

Solution? Unless you are the same sneak type and you enjoy killing each other slowly but surely, RUN!!!!!!!! As fast as you can, and don't ever look back.

Inferiority might be also very hard to detect at times, but can ruin a relationship just like that.

Especially artists and other talented, outstanding people tend to attract such partners - people with lesser abilities, vital force, emotional or mental powers, personality etc, etc, need somebody else close to them so that they can feed on the energy of the other one. These people might be the most lovable, best intentioned persons who will not knowingly "suck the blood" of the stronger, more able one and if your partner is like that, they might most honestly love and admire you and even die for you.

In fact, it very well may be that these people who feel smaller, weaker, less talented and so on than their partners, have no any other reason for that, except that they have "learned" it from other people sometime in the past that they were weak, no good etc, and by now, this is what they think about themselves.

An example: you are an artist and your mate is telling you "You are so great, and I know I will never be able to get to that height, I can't even grasp how can it be..." He is saying what? That no matter if he is an extraordinarily intelligent man, with outstanding leadership talents and other skills, let's say - he feels he is less more valuable than you are.

Then how are you supposed to love and admire such a man, how can you two be partners?

Fortunately, again, this kind of inferiority, when the other who feels he is less than you are, but in fact he has some really great values, can be remedied and you can greatly help him. There are steps one can take to discover the causes why one thinks less about himself than one should. But in such a case, it has to be first of all the party concerned who needs to have the will to sort out his or her issues, you can only assist your partner. If your partner doesn't want to, kindly say goodbye and RUN!!!!

Indeed, I had myself this problem, even with a boy where basically everything else seemed to be almost perfect: my thing was that that time I had no name as an artist, no real path and future before me, for I didn't know myself what I wanted to do with my singing, I only had some very lousy gigs, I felt I was in a quite degrading position - and he was a successful musician, making good money with it, performing for the biggest international festivals etcetera. So I didn't really have the self-confidence and all that which would be necessary for a stable relationship. (By now, although I am not a superstar, this is not a issue any more, I could even have the biggest rock star, if he came my way ;-)

Alright folks, hopefully there is some info you'll find useful in all this, for yourself or for somebody you know...

Wish you all happiness, with a partner who indeed does what he or she speaks about, with whom you can communicate very well, with whom you can align your purposes and life, who is supporting you (and of course this has to be mutual), and with whom you can honestly love and admire each other. How about that? :-)

Photo source: Imperial group as Mars and Venus, by Marie-Lan Nguyen on Wikimedia Commons
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Thinking outside the box

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Wed, 19 May 2010 10:43:00 +0000

Researchers of the Swedish Karolinska Institute just came up with an ingeniously insane study where they confirm that "distinction between psychological illness and creative thinking is wafer thin", as they say it on The Local: (Fine line between ingenious and insane: study).

Giving big, scientific words and explanations that seem oh so scientific, simply seems insanely ridiculous to me. Blatantly put: this study (just as the similar ones designed to explain why certain human behaviors - good or bad - come from certain brain malfunctions) doesn't prove a sh*t. For the very simple fact that there is no such a thing as "psychological illness". All those "diseases" have been and are being invented by psychiatrists, in order to sell medications for profits and control the population as a herd of sheep.

Watch the next phases of this story, it will go like this: soon they will STATE that indeed, there is a brain malfunction in geniuses, a certain "chemical imbalance" causes them to think and act in a super fast and individual way. And the next step will be saying "no worries, researches to develop the right cure are already in progress" (without mentioning which pharmaceutical company is funding those studies), and a bit later, voila, researchers have identified the chemical factor which is missing/overrepresented in the brains of those individuals, from which it is just one step away to develop "the right cure," in form of a new drug, of course (and guess which company will manufacture that drug...).

This is the standard routine of putting new psychiatric drugs on the market, just look at any of them. With a few other steps in between, so that it won't be so obvious - and also with an ingenious PR where they sell the idea to all the authorities and to the media. Ordinary people then will have no other choice than to believe the ingeniously made-up story, because it comes from the authorities and experts, and they hear it all the time from tv, radio and the papers, so it must be true.

Oh, yeah.

And here we can see how ingeniously they are working on this plot: psychs (=psychiatrists) are planning to classify independent thinking as a mental disorder - see NaturalNews article Now independent thinkers are considered diseased by psychiatry.

Simply ignore what these guys say, and think outside of the box, folks!

These are the kind of things highly creative persons tend to play around with: (warning: shameless self-promotion :-) )

Watch video on YouTube

And fortunately, there are sooooo many artists and thinkers, inventors around whose work I could put here to illustrate what a highly creative human being can accomplish, a good couple of names cross my mind, close and not-so-close friends, determining personalities of the past and the present and the creators of future of Mankind.

Read this one, too: Restless people

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How not to choose the right partner? Mistake #4

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:41:00 +0000

From the previous post How not to choose the right partner? Mistake #3, simply follows

Mistake #4:

when you don't look, only listen.

This one should be very simple, yet so many times we fall for the trap...

Interesting that I have planned this topic as the next one for my series, and yesterday I bumped into exactly this in two different places. One was a friend's status update on Facebook, the other one was a blog post I read called No More I Love You's, by Wolynski )who has also contributed to my Mistake #3 article with his comment).

Of course, the flowers, whispering I Love You's and sweet nothings, candle light and all that jazz, will fancy your girl and make a romance romance, they are all beautiful, they are the salt & pepper of a relationship - but would you eat salt & pepper by itself, without the meal? And here we are back at Mistake #2 where one should know first what kind of things one wants to share with the loved one, what would be the meal.

And for that, it is not enough to listen, one has to look. To ask for proving it when he or she says "I love you", might be a bit vague, because if your sweetheart doesn't know you enough yet to find out what would you need or want and you don't tell, it might easily result in upset.

But you can listen what he or she says and you can observe what he or she is doing about it. This is actually quite easy and speaks for itself - if one is willing and able to observe.

Let's see how it can go in reality, and when you realize the first such signs, you better turn around and RUN.

Your guy says he will be the bacon bringer for the big family and you can stay home and take care of the house and the many kids - But he doesn't even earn enough for two of you...

The handsome boy is raving about how much he loves dancing and when he was a bit younger, he would spend all his free nights out in the disco, till dawn, yuppie, that's your life! - But it takes him 2 years to take you out dancing, once...

You are a musician girl and your guy says he will be your manager. Wonderful, you know he is a perfectionist and he can do any task to the highest standards - But you soon realize that he doesn't know anything even about the local music scene and in fact, never liked to go to concerts, he prefers to spend his evenings at home on the sofa...

Other artist examples I mentioned in my previous postings.

Your better half is telling you that you can talk with him about everything, anytime, because he only likes honest and open communication - But as time goes by, you have to see that he simply refuses to talk about certain subjects. Let's say, he is getting into the same kind of trouble at his work over and over again and he is bringing home to you all these problems which obviously will have a bad influence on your relationship, but he is not willing to look at what could he possibly change to take responsibility for the matter and sort it out. No matter how kind and gentle your approach, he would simply close his ears and mind and shut you up.

The absolutely charming boy is telling you how beautiful you are and all those sweet words that make you melt, how much he would love you to be there with him - But besides sighing, he is not making any arrangements, not even plans so that you can be together. One of my most wonderful relationships was with a man I dated for a while through half of Europe, we lived in two far corners of the continent and we met each other in 4 countries, with impossible stories of catching trains and buses and so on. A beautiful memory for my whole life, and this man inspired me to write some of my poems. Unfortunately, what didn't work out between us was what I mentioned in Mistake #2: too different lives.

You see how messy can it get when one makes only one of these mistakes? And many times these four interlace, and #4 was not the last one yet...

Text, photo: Andrea Gerak

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How not to choose the right partner? Mistake #3

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:22:00 +0000

UPDATED IN COMMENTS

As I am getting some interesting feedback (pro and contra) on my previous posts Mistake #1 and Mistake #2, it's time to elaborate it a little more.

I take up now a point that I wanted to talk about a bit later: How the two people can have a happy relationship, if their lifestyles are different. Am I saying, for example, that an artist can only be happy with another artist? No, I am not: I know several happy couples where only one of them is an artist, so it can obviously work out well: a performing pianist with a wife who makes him a warm home and takes care of the children, a singer girl with a husband who keeps her feet on the ground and deals with the administrative matters, and so on, there are others as well.

The point is: how is your spouse actually supporting what you do.

Mistake #3:

Non-supportive partner

Let's say, you always wanted to get on a motorbike and rooooaaaarrrr! But your girl says Noooo way, honey, it's too dangerous, and I love you so much, awwwww, yap, yap, yap. Won't you be much happier with a girl who would get a license for herself as well, so that you can explore the roads together, Born To Be Wiii-i-i-ild? - this is what my lovely girlfriend did for her guy for instance, and they have great fun.

Or, you are very interested in self-betterment activities, you take courses on how to improve certain skills you have, interpersonal relationships, how to cook healthy food, you go to clubs where you discuss how to live in a green way, whatever your interest is. But your husband is not open for new information on these subjects, he has some unshakable data about how things should go, because "that's the way it has been always done", and he keeps telling you how stupid is to spend your time on such nonsense, the woman should sit at home - RUN!!, and find somebody else, if you can't handle him on this.

Artists. Why, that's a quite sensitive topic, because artists very often tend to attract partners who won't support their activities, or worse, will try to stop them in one way or the other. And many times, it is very difficult to recognize such a situation, because of all the emotional and sensual aspects; the sexual bond, the sweet words he or she is whispering in your ears, her beauty or his handsomeness and so on, will not let you see.

Probably the worst thing that can happen to an artist is to hook up with somebody who says they love your art sooo much, but in fact, they are doing things that pull you down as an artist.

The man says he wants to be your manager? Wow, what can be better than that, to really share your life with your love who admires your art so much and wants to support it? So you move in with him, you cook his dinner etc, but after a while you realize that it takes your sweetheart 4 months to check out the video you made to one of your songs (if he watches it at all), because he is too busy with reading the news on the internet and wants to finish his computer game first... Indirectly, he is saying what? That the computer game and the evening news are more important than your artistic creation, but of course, he will not tell you this in your face.

Your gorgeous girl keeps saying how much she loves your music, she has never enough of it, oh baby, I love you so much, you are the best!!! and all that. Meanwhile she is posting videos of you where she makes you, the big artist, act how she wants it, on the level of a 13-year-old kid, along with videos where her girlfriend is sitting and peeing on the toilet, or posting a strip bar as a photo of you... Now, if that's not degrading, than what is?

Sadly enough, this is a real example, and this chick goes even further: she is posting his songs on a music website under her name, and gives a baby in diapers as an artist photo, along with a portrait of another artist. This musician is before a big release and tours and etcetera - surely it will make an impact on the music biz people, and his fans... I won't put the link here, because this is an absolutely disgusting way of making nothing out of an artist, don't you think? These kind of actions are very well disguised as "being funny", "just a joke", and such, because the girl is so cute and she has a hilarious sense of humor - but in reality, it is simply degrading the artist and his work, big time.

Whether it's intentional from her part, whether it's not and this is all what she is able to do with her intellect - it just sucks the life out of the other being, without him even noticing it.

And this is the most dangerous way of ruining a talented person, because of its insidious nature; it is hard to detect when you are sooo much in love with your beautiful and sexy darling and she tells you all the time how much she loves you and your work.

Better wake up, my friend, and look! If you only listen, it might not result in the music you would like to hear...

-- Andrea Gerak
Photo: Iqbal Saggu

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How not to choose the right partner? Mistake #2

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:58:00 +0000

Okay, so you are so much in love that nothing else matters and you would go to the end of the world with your partner, right? Even if you have to give up your home, your career, your hobbies, move away from family and friends and your beloved hometown, - as long as you two are together, nothing bad can happen and everything is hunky-dory, love will get you through everything.

That's beautiful and very romantic! This is what we have all read in the wonderful books and seen in the movies, these are the stories to sigh and dream about. But how does it work in actual life?

It might and when it does, you see a truly happy couple. Only you must not make
Mistake #2:

Too different purposes, lifestyles

Not talking about now such extremes that a person working for an anti-drug campaign, would not marry a cocaine dealer.

But this is something that is very often ignored: how will the various life areas align when two people decide to start a life together?

Before deciding to move in with one's flame (or perhaps better, before even starting the relationship), it's very useful - I would say ESSENTIAL - to take a look at one's own life, as for what exactly one wants for himself (work and leisure, belongings etc), and in terms of family and relationship, friends, groups or associations one is part of, etc. And see how does all that fit to what the partner wants.

Ask yourself and your partner questions, such as: How the place where we would live will suit my profession (work, hobby, passion, mission, whatever is relevant)? How do I keep contact with my friends and associates? How do our schedules match and is that workable on a long term? What kind of environment would I like to live in? What kind of things can we actually share together?

Examples:

I have been always an outgoing person, active in various artist groups or did sports, happy in big cities where something cultural was happening and even happier when I could also contribute to it, not being only a spectator, eight nights a week I would be out, training, rehearsing, performing, taking lessons, watching others performances, etc. Can you imagine me to be a cute housewife, staying at home with four children, taking care of the house, the chicken and the potatoes&carrots in the garden, in a tiny village, with not even a mobile phone that time, not not mention internet with Facebook and all? That's what one of my guys had in mind for me...

Or let's say, you are a musician, with a great place to live in a city with a buzzy music scene where you have your friends and connections, and you are planning big tours for your upcoming album, wanna show your music to the whole world, now you are really started rocketing, full of power and creativity, wooooom! Then comes this gorgeous, super-sexy girl and of course, you would trade the whole world for her beautiful eyes. Wonderful, that's how love should start!
But how should it go on?
You are so in love that you don't recognize her obvious attempts to catch a hubby who would stay home with her and make babies - this is what she wants right now. It's great for a man to create a family with a woman, but the last thing you ever wanted for yourself is to be a decent Hubby and live an ordinary life with your Wifey.
And she is soooo beautiful and you are sooooo much in love that you drop everything: from your fantastic, inspiring environment where you were free to make your music any time of the day or night, and from the big city where your manager and other contacts live, you go down and move in with her in a far away small town where you only know your girl and her family, and where hardly anything is happening.

You are toast, mate, and after the first times of thrill are gone, you'll feel miserable, but you won't be able to put your finger on it why... Of course you'll know why: because you are not going toward your purpose, you are not doing what you want to do. If your purpose is to go out and share your music with the world, you can't do that by sitting in the house in a small place, changing diapers and being a sweet hubby, revolving your whole life around your wifey, can you?

And if you do marry this gorgeous one, why, your wedding ceremony will be your funeral as an artist.

Or the other way around: you are perfectly happy with sitting at home after work and figure out chess tactics for hours, so that you can beat your buddies at the club on Friday, but your honey wants to go out with you three times a week for a dance course - you never understood why was it good to shake one's ass and do all those strange movements when one could just sit down in peace and figure out things. After a while you might realize that your wife is going out two more nights with her new dance partner, and not only for the course...

Not aligning purposes is probably the fastest, most effective road to an unhappy relationship, and that's not what you want, right?

--
Andrea Gerak
photo: "Shared journey", by Alicepopkorn

How not to choose the right partner? Mistake #1

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World Cancer Day

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:15:00 +0000

So it's World Cancer Day today - I didn't think cancer was something to celebrate...

Okay, as it is a real concern for many people (indeed, many of my friends talk about themselves, family members or friends having this disease and I myself got through it exactly 2 years ago), and there are a lot of questions, misconceptions, uncertainties, false data and controversies in the subject, let's take another look at it. These are my own observations and conclusions, and you are invited to look at facts and make up your own mind.

A few months ago, regarding the Breast Cancer Awareness Month, October, I pointed out a couple of controversies of the official cancer politics:
Cancer research: forward or backward? and
Is cancer caused by the genes?

Let's go further.

It's great that the WHO is showing signs of improvement and hope when they now say that 40% of cancer can be prevented, compared to 30% in their fact sheet on cancer which was published in 2008. This is good improvement, but it is not enough.

And the motto for today is 'Cancer can be prevented too' which is fortunately true. One just has to know the exact causes of it - which is not widely promoted by the standard medicine or health organizations.

What they suggest for prevention are all valid and good things:

no tobacco use
a healthy diet and regular exercise
limited alcohol use
protection against cancer-causing infections.

And also, WHO's Noncommunicable Diseases Action Plan gives an international strategy to collaborate on cancer prevention and control, where the first point says
"Increase political commitment for cancer prevention and control"

Prevention.

A question: Although one can see and welcome decisions on banning smoke at public places in more and more countries, and there are efforts to educate on the harms of tobacco, when will the time come when governments and other powers will say No thanks, we don't want the huge sums of money coming in to us from tobacco and alcohol sales??? An example: Sweden is a healthy country, that we all know, right? Their National Food Administration (Livsmedelsverket) names alcohol as nutrition.

Healthy diet?
Staying in Sweden, this authority supports such carcinogen poisons as aspartam or natrium-glutamat. Sugar, which is most loved by cancerous cells (according to Otto Warburg for example, who got a Nobel Prize on cancer discoveries), they need it in order to grow, sugar is recommended by the Livsmedelsverket up to 50grams a day, added to the food - it's very hard to find here food that shouldn't even be sweetened at the first place, like bread or meat products, without some form of sugar added to it. Fifty grams pure sugar a day, you know how much is that? Imagine eating almost 12 (twelve) teaspoons of sugar a day, with your sausage or ham sandwich, yuck...!

Protection against cancer-causing infections?
Of course, the pharmaceutical companies are highly interested in selling more and more vaccines, that should be clear.

And if the prevention fails (how wouldn't it, if you only look at these points above?) and the patient does get cancer, somebody will have to manufacture and sell newer and newer drugs for the chemotherapy and painkillers etc...

Control.

Here I can imagine the increasing political commitment: it can be easily seen that for example control occupational hazards (which is one of WHO's preventive strategies) means making it hard for alternative medicine or organizations, individuals that have proven record of healing cancer (or other illnesses) by treating the person in spiritual, holistic ways, with simple and cheap methods (sunshine, vitamins) etc. What if Albert Szentgyörgyi was right about vitamin C? No, that doesn't sound good, because Big Pharma has an essential role in the official cancer politics and strategies, and one can't make big cash on a simple thing that can't be trade marked and sold as such.

“Today, America’s pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies lead the world in investing in new biopharmaceutical research and development – investing nearly $59 billion in 2007 alone. These extensive private investments – roughly double that of the National Institutes of Health’s entire operating budget – represent one important reason why America leads the world in developing new treatments for diseases such as cancer and AIDS. Quick action on Senators Baucus and Hatch’s legislation will help the United States remain the global engine of technological and medical innovation as well as strengthen the economic and personal health of every American.” - from PhRMA Applauds Introduction of Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement Act of 2008

Why do I have the notion that although without a question, most of the people working at the determining organizations have the honest and best intentions to actually handle the problem of cancer and help those who suffer, it is still money that talks?

So I just had a drink with 1000mg vitamin C (the 4th one today), cheers!

About Andrea's Survival Guide
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How not to choose the right partner? Mistake #1

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:24:00 +0000

I have been doing so excellent at this that it entitles me to have a good laugh about it and write a couple of expert words. If you live in a happy relationship, it is not for you, if only with the purpose of sharing your experiences of what did work, of which I would love to hear.

Summarizing these mistakes and errors one can make when choosing a partner one wants to hook up with, will hopefully help a couple of people not to make them. Because I can assure you, they don't work - these are either my personal experiences (here you go, if you ever wanted a peek into Andrea Gerak's personal life), either stories I have seen in my immediate environment.

As I am an artist and many of my friends are artists, most of these real life examples will be from this area, but these mistakes or horrible errors are made daily by any other people as well, if you look around...

So here you have Mistake #1:

1. Different communication levels

How well can you communicate with each other? What are the subjects you can talk about? How well do you understand each other? Do your intellectual levels (IQ) match (meaning: are they similar, and not "opposites attract"...)?

Let's say you are a spiritually aware writer and you write deep philosophical thoughts about life. You get involved in conversation with your readers, you inspire them to express their views on the matter, some of them even come up with long essays, and with their thoughts you get more ideas to write about, etc.

And here's your girl you are about to marry, because she is so goddamn beautiful and just incredibly sexy and cute: her only comments about your high thoughts are "you are so right, as always, xoxo", "awww, I love you baby!" - if she can say a word at all... and on the videos she is posting on her MySpace, Facebook or what have you, she is doing nothing but giggling like a 13 year old, with chewing gum almost falling out of her mouth... (no exaggeration, I indeed know such a couple)

Sure she is the most beautiful and sexiest babe there is on the market and that is fantastic, but after the first times of thrill are gone, you will have an awful time with this chick. Probably you have heard about misunderstood artists.

Well, who should understand you the best, if not the partner of your life, your soulmate?

If it's enough for you to have a sexy babe with such qualities and you are not looking for a woman who does understand all your high thoughts, good luck man! You are heading for real stormy weathers.

About Andrea's Survival Guide
www.andreagerak.com

Fight?? Create!

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:10:00 +0000

This I started just as a quick pondering, wanted to post a Ping update, but once I get creative...

Fight for peace, fight against cancer, fight against poverty, fight against environmental problems, fight for children, fight for rights, fight for life, fight for love. We hear these words all the time and it seems that all the good people of the world are fighting - isn't that strange?

Awesome that they want good things for themselves and others, but why fighting?

Fighting can be appropriate and necessary in certain cases, when you indeed must punch an opponent in the face to stay alive and so on, but I don't think that this is the only method. And that it is the most effective one, generally.

For fight is very low emotionally, it involves despair, anger, antagonism, which in fact result in destructive actions, inevitably.

So instead, why not go up on a higher plane and create?

Create peace with great intentions, constructive, fun and effective actions, education, arts.

Learn what do you need to do to live in good health, physically and mentally.

Create wealth by production.

Create a safe and sane environment.

Love and help children, create a great future for them.

Know your rights and grant others theirs.

Live!

Love!

Or does it sound too simple?

--
Text, photo: Andrea Gerak

Also in Andrea's Blog
About Andrea's Survival Guide
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Is cancer caused by the genes?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:16:00 +0000

Still October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And I am hearing from many of my friends that their family members, relatives, friends are struggling with some form of cancer, so I would like to help them.

In a previous post I expressed my doubts and reservations about the current methods of official "cancer politics", i.e. chemical drugs and similar agressive treatments are advertised and applied heavily, along with the permanent claims that researches need incredible amount of money every year, without getting any close to the real roots to the problem and offering effective solutions to handle those.

Probably it is time to dig deep and handle.

I wrote a few days ago:

"The theory of changed or damaged genes is wide spread, and this video gives a little hint on why does it occur:

"Damage or change in the genetic material of cells by environmental of internal factors sometimes results in cells that do not die and continue to multiply until a massive cancer cell or tumor develops."

Excellent. The next step would be then to investigate these environmental or internal factors that damage or change the genetic material of cells, wouldn't it?"

This is exactly what Dr. Bruce Lipton did. Watch these 2 videos (they are lengthy but definitely worth the time) where he speaks about the causes of illnesses generally, and specifically mentions breast cancer as an example.

For me, this lecture and the data in it gives the answers and thus the way to real solutions about cancer that research institutes are trying to find on an ever increasing, stellar high budget.

But I can't tell you, dear reader, what YOU should think about it, only encourage you to find out more about the subject for yourself. Dr. Lipton describes his theory in his book Biology of Belief, published in 2005.

Countless cases and experiences from the most various fields of the so-called "alternative healing" show that when the person is addressed in treating a body problem (along with proper nutrition and supplements, medical treatments handling the exact cause of a symptom and such), one gets way better results than pumping almost randomly prescribed chemicals into the body, without even knowing what problems exactly those drugs are supposed to solve...

In this light, the gene theory seems quite outdated and invalid, regardless of how great PR has been given to it by cancer institutes, governmental health bodies.

--
Andrea Gerak

Related articles:
Ten thousand candles
Cancer research: forward or backward?

DISCLAIMER: these articles express the personal opinion of the author (a cancer survival herself), only given with the intention of sharing a viewpoint, and can't be taken as medical advice. Those in need of consultation should seek advice from licensed practitioners of both standard and alternative medicine.

About Andrea's Survival Guide
www.andreagerak.com

Do you believe in coincidences?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:21:00 +0000

Did you ever have an accident? We know, that was an unfortunate coincidence.
Did you ever run to school or work and missed all the buses and subways and arrived late? (I did...) Coincidence - great way to explain yourself out of the situation.
Did you know people who lost their jobs, family and health in the same time? Poor guy - coincidence.
While another suddenly got an extremely good job offer and found the mate of his life? He was just lucky - coincidence...

coincidence= the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection; also: any of these occurrences (Merriam-Websters)

In a video, I heard a few words by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz on this subject: "Belief in coincidence is neither scientific, nor religious. From a scientific standpoint, there is scientific determinism. Well, from a religious standpoint, there are things that are done which have an influence on the outcome. Coincidence is a way in which people trying escape bearing any responsibility"

He was commenting on an instance when in Israel there was a very long period of drought and people went to the Wailing Wall and prayed for rain - and voila, soon there it came.

(This quick thought just occurred to me now: there are so many people who are talking in a degrading way about religions, because "religion is not scientific", they say - but in this case, where was Almighty Science to bring waters from the sky that was so much needed? A humble question on the side note.)

Science and religion both have their values and uses, and they are great when they can give practical solutions to problems.

So what now with coincidence? Is there such a thing? What to do with it?

The above mentioned determinism is very much discussed throughout many fields of science: physics, biology, mathematics, and in philosophy etc. Let's let the scientists dispute it further, until they come up with answers that are really usable for everybody, even for the housewife and the bus driver. For any knowledge is only as good as it can be applied. In physics for example, determinism do have certain practical applications: if you are familiar with the related natural laws, you know why it will be much easier to glide downhill with your bike than push it uphill.

However, the definition of determinism used here implies that in certain situations one can't do anything, because everything has to go according the natural laws.

The only problem with this is that it puts one in an effect position and from that, you really can't and will not do anything to change things in life for the better.

"Yes, when one is over fifty, one puts on a lot of extra weight, that's the way it is."
"I have to bear with my husband's drinking, because men are like that."
"I could get a super good job, if the government didn't mess up this country."
"January is always the worst month, we never make any money."

And so on, this is how determinism reflects in everyday life. (Don't mix this definition with another one, where determinism = the quality or state of being determined, that is not what we are talking about now.)

That much about that. Let's take the religious standpoint Rabbi Steinsaltz mentioned: isn't it more practical? You have a difficult situation, problem - you can always do something about it!

Your 15-year-old kid is revolting continuously and you are not able to handle him? Instead of saying "Everybody knows that teenagers are like that", learn more about how to raise children, what is their mindset, how to communicate with them.
You always feel down when being in the near of a certain type of people? Instead of saying "They are just so stupid", learn about how to deal with such persons.
Your company has been hit very hard by the economy crisis? Instead of giving up and saying "Well, there is a crisis everywhere, of course we can't sell" and considering going bankrupt, burn the midnight oil and find more, new ways of promoting and selling your products.

I give this again from the Rabbi: "there are things that are done which have an influence on the outcome."

You can be cause and you don't even have to be religious for that.

How do you like this idea and how can you apply it to your life?

--
Andrea Gerak
Photo: Niklas Sjöblom
About Andrea's Survival Guide
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Cancer research: forward or backward?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:44:00 +0000

"Fight cancer", "Beat cancer" are very popular expressions these days, and it is good so, especially in October which is the Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

One can see many people wearing pink ribbons on their jackets, which is a demonstration of their will to help those women who suffer from this disease. And this is very much appreciated and should be acknowledged. Fundraising and information events, websites, donations, merchandise, advertisements all over the media, groups on social networking sites, individuals spreading the word - attention is certainly given to the subject and considerable amount of money is collected to fund cancer researches. In Stockholm, they had a beautiful demonstration with candles for the cause.

However, looking a little bit closer, I personally have some questions, doubts and reservations about these research programs and might be a bad person, but I didn't donate one single cent and not intend to do so. Tell you why.

Fight. A key word when talking about cancer.

How do you best fight so that you win?

You know your enemy.

A problem - any problem - can be only handled if one knows the exact cause of it. This should be clear - how else do you solve a situation, if you don't know what is it exactly?

In the case of (breast) cancer, it looks like this: each year $ millions are spent to find out the causes of cancer AND more importantly, develop new treatments. Let me suggest: treatments can be only effective when they target the root of the problem...

"The exact causes of breast cancer are not known." In fact, according to the publicly available statements, causes of cancer are a mystery for the medical profession.

The theory of changed or damaged genes is wide spread, and this video gives a little hint on why does it occur:

"Damage or change in the genetic material of cells by environmental of internal factors sometimes results in cells that do not die and continue to multiply until a massive cancer cell or tumor develops."

Excellent. The next step would be then to investigate these environmental or internal factors that damage or change the genetic material of cells, wouldn't it?

The environmental factors are pretty much known for the scientists and for the public: bad nutrition, tobacco, certain chemicals that we use, etc.

Cancer research should go then in the direction of eliminating these factors: educating the population on correct eating habits, cutting back the use of harmful chemicals, and so on.

And cancer treatment would primarily consist of targeting the cause of cancer, the reason why those genes got changed or damaged: increasing certain vitamins and other nutrition supplements, cleansing and physical exercise that helps the body push out the accumulated toxins, boosting the body's own self defense, the immune system and so on.

But this is not how it goes. Cancer researches deal mostly with developing the standard therapies by official medicine: new drugs, radiation, hormones and surgery.

And cancer treatments available in hospitals are mainly about giving chemotherapy and such to the patients. Can you see how adding extra chemicals into the already overwhelmed and weakened system would help the body to recover? I can't.

So why then chemotherapy is a preferred and highly promoted method, when it has very many known harmful side effects?

The answer is easy: pharmaceutical companies have vast interests in introducing and marketing drugs.

As Clinical Study Results.Org openly admits: "Clinical studies designed for approval of a new drug are sponsored primarily by pharmaceutical and biotech companies." Surprise, surprise!

One can predict the outcome of a clinical study on breast cancer treatment, if more than one-fifth of the Swedish Cancer Society researches are financed by Pfizer - can you guess from what pharma company will they recommend medicine to the patients? (UPDATE, March/18 2010: Pfizer Hid Evidence That HRT Causes Cancer via NaturalNews.com)

Another suggested treatment is hormonal therapy. About that, only one word:
"Hormonal therapy can cause a variety of side effects including:
...
Increased risk for cancer of the uterus" - from the information video on the National Breast Cancer.Org site.

Pardon me??? Treating one cancer by increasing the risk for another one??? Someone must be kidding here and it's a very ugly joke.

Same for radiation therapy.

So what's the solution? To invest more money in research?

The above mentioned Swedish Cancer Society (Cancerfonden) held a nice event last Saturday in Stockholm where people bought ten thousand candles or so and contributed to the funding. This organization alone has a target to spend more then 400 million SEK each year on research.

That's a nice sum of money ($57M approx. and it's only in one country), one can imagine to do great things with it. I wonder though why does cancer research need so much money to find out for example that tobacco or alcohol is not good for your health and there are certain vitamins that are vital for the normal operation of cells, when this has been already known for a good while.

I am more inclined to listen to what the so-called alternative methods recommend, because I believe that by well-balanced nutrition with supplements if needed and a general good care of the body physically and mentally, one does not need to be afraid of even such a threatening disease as cancer.

Therefore I intentionally didn't link to sites of alternative practices, natural remedies, viewpoints or products, only referred to the information provided by the standard medicine, which is adopted and promoted by governments of the developed countries.

Well, look at the facts and the controversies they are giving and make up your own mind about it.

In the next round, I will share a few personal experiences that might help others as well - I am a cancer survival myself, so I put quite some effort to find out what works and what doesn't.

And I do like that Stockholm Central Station got some nice pink color:

--
Text and photo: Andrea Gerak
Related posts:
beautiful demonstration with candles
Is cancer caused by the genes?

About Andrea's Survival Guide
www.andreagerak.com

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Grading yourself

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:48:00 +0000

One of my favorite reads is Derek Sivers' daily ponderings. He always poses a thought-evoking question or subject and I can't help but take a look at how I view the matter. And instead of writing a lengthy comment there, I answer here.

Yesterday's question was How do you grade yourself?
It got quite some responses - as always.

This is what I would say for myself:
- how many lives do I change for the better, even for a moment, with whatever I am doing. Creating a positive effect whereby their mood will raise for any length of time.

You know, bringing up somebody who is sad, angry or just bored, lift up somebody even higher who is anyway high spirit. This is pretty much an essential part of an artist's job. I would say it's a duty to bring people up and not down.

And this I can measure by the various responses I get: a smile, a thank you, a few words of feedback and such.

However, often it is not easy: how do you count all the sparkling eyes at a concert? Or when you just walk in the street and somebody smiles back at you?

So from my profession, I also have to be more practical on this and look at dry facts, like statistics on my web places, media appearances, CDs or downloads sold and such.

And in order to achieve good numbers in these, the point is not to concentrate on these figures (which would be called pushing the statistics and that just doesn't work), but creating and sharing stuff that can do any good to someone else: a song, a video, a photo, a poem, an article, a gift item, showing a book, a product or other piece of info to people that can help them or make their lives better in some way.

And what's your measure?

--
Photo: Darren Hester

About Andrea's Survival Guide
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The Power of the Arts - re. G20 Summit, Pittsburgh

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:41:00 +0000

There could be a lot said about the G20 Summit that just happened in Pittsburgh, but I'm not gonna go into environmental, financial, health or globalization issues, the protests, human rights etc, here. What I am mostly interested is the cultural aspect of the whole happening, and keep an eye on the concerts and other art related events.

Found Michelle Obama's comments at the CAPA (Creative and Performing Arts High School in Pittsburgh) absolutely great. I wish this attitude towards arts would penetrate our lives on all levels.

"We believe strongly that the arts aren't somehow an "extra" part of our national life, but instead we feel that the arts are at the heart of our national life. It is through our music, our literature, our art, drama and dance that we tell the story of our past and we express our hopes for the future."

I personally also firmly believe that it is art and culture that moves the world forward more than politics, money and such would do.

"And most of all, the arts have the power to connect us to each other throughout nations."

Let me tell you, the most fantastic thing is to experience when my songs from my little country Hungary, or the Balkans, Ireland, Peru or the Solomon Islands reach and touch people from Spain, Israel, India, Brazil or the US.

Read Michelle Obama's whole speech here

Thank you, First Lady, and I am very grateful to all the art lovers who are giving power to all young and not-so-young, amateur and professional artists and help us in any ways to do our job in creating a good world to live in.

- Andrea Gerak

About Andrea's Survival Guide
Andrea Gerak Music blog - news about the singer and other recommended artists
www.andreagerak.com - official website

More articles on music:
What Is Music?
How and Where to Learn Music?

How to keep in shape?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:57:00 +0000

To my Facebook profile, I uploaded a self-portrait which triggered quite a few comments and was asked about how did I manage to keep in shape. Right, I am getting compliments about my look all the time, which goes also with my profession.

Well, you be the judge. (in my Facebook photo album the picture is bigger and much clearer)

So I'm gonna let you in some of my secrets here.

#1: An artist's job is to create beauty, aesthetic things. So where else should one start, than with herself, making herself beautiful?

Both inside and outside, mentally and physically.

Well now, that's a big subject! Sure bet, if one wants to make tons of books, magazines, radio and television shows, workshops, courses, websites, get into conversations with others.

But let's just make here a very short point.

Although I do have a bunch of tips and tricks of how to stay young, good looking and so on, and of which I will be sharing the best ones with you, this would be one of my first answers to the question: if your job is to make something beautiful, then you might as well start with something that is the closest to you as a being - your body.

Yeah of course, there is such a thing as genetics, but it's still up to each and every person to make the best out of what they have got.

And how my friend Zita Tatrai put it: one should look good as a way of showing respect for others.

And of course, for yourself.

And now, when you finish reading (commenting, checking around what else you find here on my pages, etc :-) and you look into the mirror, I hope you will see yourself even more beautiful.

Andrea Gerák | Create Your Badge

--
About Andrea's Survival Guide
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You might like my songs as well, have a listen

How long does one live?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Fri, 29 May 2009 07:28:00 +0000

I love folklore. Probably it's not surprising, being a folk singer and dancer.

What I love about it is the the poesy, beauty, aesthetics and the wisdom of how these everyday people express(ed) their feelings and views. One can not only enjoy the wonderful melody and lyrics of a song, but very often learn great things about life from just a couple of words.

Hungarian folk dance is often accompanied (beside music and singing, of course) by a certain kind of thing called "csujogatás" (tchoo-yo-gho-taash or something), which is yelling out short verses in rythm. You can hear it in the video below and get a taste of how we are having fun at this part of the world. (Some of my dance masters and biggest names in Hungarian folk music also appear on this recording, and this particular dance is so fantastic that I can't imagine living my life without doing it every now and then.)

One of my favorite such "csujogatás" answers to one of the big questions of life: how long does one live?

As long as I'm here and living,
Inside me resounds the spirit,
Spirit sings, resounds the word,
Love-door's loud chanting is heard.

Original Hungarian:
Addig élek, amíg élek,
Amíg bennem zeng a lélek,
Zeng a lélek, zeng a szó,
Zeng a szerelemajtó.

Isn't it wonderful, what do you think?

--
About Andrea's Survival Guide
www.andreagerak.com

You might like my songs as well, have a listen

What Is Music?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Tue, 26 May 2009 12:11:00 +0000

As we are going to talk about music here every now and then, it is good to clear up what to understand under the term "music".

I wrote in my previous post that I had been in the music school for 3 years but there was no mentioning about WHAT music really was. Yeah right, music is the stuff that comes out of instruments...

How is one supposed to do something well, if he doesn't understand what is it about???

So what do you think about the following:

This is probably the nicest definition for music I found, from Emmy Award winner composer, concert pianist and recording artist Jace Vek.

"There must be some divine intervention, some ethereal inspiration that opens the doorway to a special universe. A place where what we see and feel cannot be described in words as we know them but in a special language.

And for a brief moment, the listener is catapulted into this special universe. A place where sound transcends the boundaries of age and culture.

This is our language. The language of music."

It's not strictly technical (music is not all about technique anyway, is it?) but gives us the essence: it is a language. And I just find it beautiful how this quote describes what kind of language it is.

Check out Jace's website at www.jacevek.com for more of his music and concert dates as well, and tune in to the weekly radio show on BlogTalkRadio, each Wednesday at 3pm (Eastern Standard Time) Jace Vek Live

UPDATE:

After the latest episode, I highly recommend you listening to what else Jace and his producer has to say about this subject here. How they describe what music really is, I would even say should be taught in schools as a basic.

And of course, you are in for a treat of an extremely powerful, uplifting music experience as well:

Jace Vek Live! Romantic music... (Episode 5/27/2009)

--
About Andrea's Survival Guide
www.andreagerak.com

You might like my songs as well, have a listen
Hátha szeretni fogod a dalaimat is, hallgass bele!

Swine flu story is for the birds

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Fri, 08 May 2009 08:33:00 +0000

UPDATE, Sep 7:

I can't believe that the swine flu hoax is still on... Folks, please DON'T buy hogwash! Get educated on the subject, please.

A useful read WHO Admits to Releasing Pandemic Virus into Population via 'Mock-Up' Vaccines

My original post:

Thanks God, swine flu is not a leading topic on Twitter any more. This shows that although the media is still trying hard to make people believe that the best way not to die of these new bird-swine-giraffe-hippopotamus-MysteriousWhatComesNextAnimal viruses is to get shot with fancy vaccines (that are being promptly and of course, expensively developed and distributed according to the demands, thanks to Big Pharma and Big Governments, the Almighty bless their names forever!), otherwise we are getting close to the world's end and we all shall die, - the folks tend not to buy everything what fearmongers say.

Here is probably the most scientific evaluation of the phenomenon that I have seen so far:

see more Funny Graphs

For those who don't have anything better to do and want to spend more time with submerging in the subject, here's a few recommended links to check out. Have fun, if you can, while discovering a couple of dirty and dangerous tricks of the mighty.

Swine flu outbreak. The truth is ugly
Google search results on swine flu drug company profit

You should also hear what the officials say. A high authority in the matter, Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) tells us all in
CDC Briefing on Investigation of Human Cases of H1N1 Flu

My favorite statement from him is this: "But you know, how an individual person will be impacted by the infection is not something we know."

Bravo, absolutely correct, Herr Besser! Not to know what exactly a disease is and how exactly it is impacting people, yet giving them chemicals in forms of vaccines and keeping them in misinformed about an artificially generated epidemic is a big mistake and putting individuals at risk! I would even call it a high crime, not just a mistake.

Let's rather get back to our scientific graph and use some common sense, my friends!

Apart from the fact that the exact mechanism of any contagious disease was described already in 1950 in the Dianetics book and so it should be known by the experts dealing with the subject, a safe attitude for people with just a normal brain could be something like this: "I am not a pig (replace current animal), why should I catch swine (other animal) flu???", "Thanks for warning me about the possibility of an epidemic, but I'm not gonna participate", "Is there an epidemic? Of sorry, I am too busy with living my life and can't attend!"

In my 4 decades I did have a couple of ills, but don't remember to having caught flu, although I was all the time in touch with lots of people in lots of countries.

Wanna join me in an influenza-free life?

--
About Andrea's Survival Guide
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You might like my songs as well, have a listen

How and where to learn music?

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:06:00 +0000

As a singer, standard questions that I am getting are: "How did you learn singing?", "Where did you learn music?", etc.

I find these questions quite interesting. Think of it for a moment: haven't you observed that every child knows how to sing and they are happy when they do sing? Or, in less civilized cultures than today's globalizing, consume-oriented Western cities, thanks God it's still a natural part of life to sing! In certain villages at my part of the world (Hungary, Eastern Europe) for instance, hundred years ago everybody still knew the songs, everybody would sing when working, having a party, or just when happy or sad.

Then why don't we?

This way a more appropriate question would be "How did you manage keep on singing as an adult?", "How did you become a singer?", "When did you decide to have singing as your profession?" or something along this line.

A bit similar with music: the ancient Greeks played 3-4 instruments by the age of 11-12 and it was an integrated element in their education - why is it then so uncommon today that somebody learns to play an (1, one!) instrument or knows something about music?

The musicians are on a break - took this photo at a party for children in a Hungarian village in Moldva or Moldavia, Romania, in 2008

Do you know somebody who says: "I would also learn how to play ..., but", "I always wanted to learn ..., but", "Oh, how I would like to learn ..., but" - but, but, but?

Maybe you are one of them?

Here is the best thing such a person can do:
Meet Duncan Lorien.

Just in a short time of a few days, this fantastic guy will give you everything there is to know about music theory and he will teach you how to play piano, guitar or basically any instrument. Sounds incredible? It does, I know.

Duncan Lorien in Vienna, 2008. Photo: dlorien.com

I did his seminar Understanding of Music first in 1998 and still today I am thankful for one piece of information I learned there, which gave me a big kick in my decision to become a professional singer. Sure I learned more stuff, but that one particular datum was kind of life changing for me.

When I was a child, I went to music school for 3 years (learned guitar and cello), but quit - most probably because I couldn't understand how and why the musical notes were named: why does the alphabet in music start on C and not in A? And other such questions of mine were not answered. If you are here in Europe and are/were taught according to the German system, you can get into even much fancier questions.

What is more, now I realized that I didn't even understand the word music! Yeah, music is the stuff one is listening to when somebody plays it on an instrument. Cool. But what is it? This they don't tell you in the music school.

Does this look like Chinese to you? You are at the right place, keep on reading.

How on Earth are you supposed to do music when you don't even know what is it?

Duncan solved this riddle for me in a way so that it will never be a problem any more.

After this seminar 11 years ago, I was practicing on the synthetizer for 1 or 2 weeks (I don't remember exactly), maybe half an hour, an hour a day, and then I played the song What Child Is This? with two hands, without having to look at the notes - never learned the keyboard before!

And what is maybe even more important: one single piece of info I got at the seminar helped me to confirm my decision I was making just that time, that I should be a singer...

Last year, my husband who had nothing to do with music (except as a fan of classic rock and a great supporter of my singing career in terms of logistics and such), after this seminar bought a synth and a guitar for himself, and ever since, sometimes when I am away and we speak on the phone, he plays a riff or two for me.

Just last weekend, Duncan was here in Budapest with this seminar with an attendance of 70 or so, including music professionals.

One half of the room - Duncan Lorien in Budapest, 2009 May
Writing success stories - my son is on the pic too, can you guess where?

My kid who is 16 and besides learning a little bit of drums is a teenager on the computer and his video games all the time, decided to study from 9am to 6pm for 4 days, while his buddies were loafing around on the long weekend. Boy, he had such a great fun, one can't stop him telling about this seminar! After the second day, he went over to his father (who is a professional musician, doing his college to become a music teacher, spending years and a fortune on it) and practiced a couple of chords on the piano and on the guitar. Then he presented a list to me with the instruments he wants to learn.

I guess no need more saying.

Duncan has an awfully busy schedule, travelling around the world with his seminars, find out here when is he coming close to where you live.

He is in Stockholm at the end of next week, hurry up if you still want to reserve your place! And say hello for me to my friends (the organizers) over there.

Email to jens at bluelemononline dot com or you can write to me as well: info at andreagerak dot com

And of course, say hello to Duncan :-)

Have fun and let me hear your story about learning music: how did you learn it, why didn't you, what was/is your main difficulty in learning music, how was Duncan's seminar for you?

On learning more about how to sing, another time.

(Photo of sheet music on this page: Joel Rossol)

Read this one too: What Is Music?
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About Andrea's Survival Guide
www.andreagerak.com

About this blog

noreply@blogger.com (Andrea Gerak) — Thu, 07 May 2009 08:15:00 +0000

Hi, welcome to this new territory in
Andrea's Blog Empire!

As you can see on this pictures that was taken almost 2 weeks ago, I am forever young ;-) but lived so much in these couple of decades that it would be probably enough for 2 more lives...

When one goes through many imaginable ups and downs, utterly unhappy and lonely sometimes, struggling to get a few coins to be able to feed her kid, travels a lot, sees places, hears life stories, reads books, makes mistakes, continuously searches for solutions, and still manages it to go her way against all odds, one learns a lot from all this, above all.

Now when I've got to a point where I am a happy woman, proud mother, a successful artist, a person with many friends from all over the world, healthier (and may I say: more beautiful :-) than ever, and things are going better every day, I decided to have the luxury of sharing with you some good, usable knowledge of several areas of life that I collected along the roads.

In fact, I would feel pretty bad about not to pass on to others what I know myself from personal experience that do work.

It's not that everything is hunky-dory in my life and I don't have hard moments to get through - it's all about making it go right, whatever happens.

So here you can read about random subjects, such as beauty, health, personal relationships, how to be an artist, causes worth to support, books or quotes that inspired me and whatever comes my way I find it might be helpful for you. My main motivation is to share my knowledge with you, things that I have tried out and experienced myself in order to change conditions around me for the better and can recommend honestly to others. If I helped you with only one piece of datum, my intention was not in vain.

My friends are telling me that I should ask for money more often when I give something, so it is alright if you want to drop me a few bucks as an exchange for the information that helped you, I'll appreciate that.

You can always visit my shop as well, and get yourself some nice music and photography pieces.

And what else would be the best quote to open this Survival Guide To Life from an artist than this:

"Living itself can be an art" - L. Ron Hubbard

Yours,
Andrea Gerak

www.andreagerak.com

Online shop with CDs, MP3s, photo gifts